JANUARY ON THE WATER
With 2024 behind us, let’s look ahead to a new year of fishing and with luck, no hurricanes. January is our coolest month, and our water temperature will be the lowest of the year. Lucky for us, Southwest Florida cool fronts only last a day or two, then it’s back to sunny mild days. There should be plenty of great opportunities on the water this month.
With cooler days and water temperature of winter, shrimp is the top or preferred bait for most species. If you prefer throwing artificial baits, soft plastics in shrimp patterns is your best bet.
Sea trout are the most popular inshore game fish in Florida and hungry through the winter months. Fish for them in four- to eight-foot depths across grass flats, around the edges of sand holes and bar edges. On the cooler days they often relocate to deeper protected areas where the water is not as cold. These could be residential canals and waterways, bays, and oyster bars.
Favorite trout baits include live shrimp freelined or suspended under a popping or rattling float. Scented DOA shrimp and a wide variety and color of soft plastic baits allow you to cast and retrieve to cover a lot of area, and they catch fish. If it’s cold, fish baits near bottom and slow down your retrieve.
Winter and cold weather are the best time for catching sheepsheads. You will find sheepsheads hanging around some type of structure as they feast on barnacles, oysters, worms, small crabs, and other critters that live around these areas. Structure may include dock, pier, and bridge pilings, rock piles or jetties, oyster bars or any submerged structure that has life on it. Nearshore, in gulf waters, large sheepsheads are caught around the many artificial reefs well within sight of land and over ledges and hard coral bottom. Shrimp is the top bait for sheepsheads. They have small mouths full of big crusher teeth, so a large bait isn’t necessary. Fish baits on bottom with just enough weight to keep it there and use a small sharp hook or jig head. Sheepsheads often bite best on the coldest days.
If fishing nearshore in gulf waters expect to catch mangrove and lane snapper, tasty grunts, and possibly permit or grouper along with sheepsheads. Good bottom fishing in gulf waters is often between twenty-five and fifty feet, a short run offshore on a nice day.
Chances are good at hooking redfish and pompano over the month. Around inshore waters they are often caught while targeting sheepsheads or sea trout. Pompano are generally on the move along bar drop-offs, shorelines, off oyster bars, and like sheepsheads they only eat mollusks and crustaceans, fish is not in their diet. Shrimp is a top bait for pompano along with a small colorful jig most anglers call a silly or pompano jig. When slow bounced across a sandy bottom it mimics a shrimp or small crab escaping.
Redfish range over a wide area. They might show up on the flats and bar edges while trout fishing, around oyster bars, mangrove shorelines, and the same structure mentioned for sheepsheads. Redfish are scent feeders; their eyesight isn’t the best, so they rely on their nose. Shrimp is a great bait and often rigged with the tail pinched off on a jig head. This allows shrimpM scent in the water. Another proven method is to find a likely area to hold reds such as a shoreline or structure and fish cut baits, like pinfish, sardines, mullet, ladyfish, or shrimp on bottom.
Stay up to date with fishing regulations by visiting the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission at http://www.myfwc.com. Also, upload the Fish Rules app on your phone. It has current regulations with pictures to help identify fish.
I hope everyone has a great New Year and takes some time to spend on the water.
For charter information, please contact us at Gulf Coast Guide Service and “Catch the Action” with Capt. Bill Russell, call or text (239) 410 8576, website: http://www.fishpineisland.com, email: [email protected].
Capt. Bill Russell is a native and lifelong resident of Pine Island who has spent his entire life fishing the waters surrounding Pine Island and Southwest Florida. For the past 29 years, Bill has been a professional fishing guide who takes pride in customizing each trip to ensure everyone on board has a great time and will return again. Come join us and “Catch the Action.”
